Friend of Narnia
by Riley Alicia
Summary: Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. It was a game, a game they played as children.
1. A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do

Chapter One: A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do

Susan stared out of the window. The rain pelted the glass, leaving it blurred. Nothing could have prepared her for this, not even if they'd told her it was going to happen.

She sighed heavily, thinking of Peter's last words to her.

"_You're losing it, Su," he shouted, his face red with anger. "You've got to stop this nonsense. Ever since we came back from Narnia-"_

"_Shut up about Narnia!" She screamed back. "It doesn't exist! It was a stupid fairy tale we played. We're not kids anymore, Pete. You have to grow up sometime!" His pitying expression pierced through her soul._

"_And is that what you think you're doing? 'Growing up'? Su, you're less of an adult now than when you believed in Narnia. I wish you would remember, the way I do. But you've forgotten it all in favor of this…" he trailed off, waving his hand at the nylon stockings draped over her bed, the tubes of ruby red lipstick and bright blue eyeshadow that littered her dresser, and the flowered party invitations she'd taped to her mirror. _

_Instead of responding, of trying to make him see reason, she threw her compact mirror at him. He slammed the door just in time, leaving the small circle of glass to shatter against it. _

_Why_ had he insisted on playing those stupid games? A young man of twenty-two, pretending about a magical land where animals talked and the four Pevensies had ruled as Kings and Queens! Edmund and Lucy still believed, too; Lucy at eighteen, and Edmund but a year older. They were too old to be playing childish games.

But as she shifted on the hard rear seat of the car that bore her to her new home, she began to wish she could still believe in Narnia. Times back then had seemed much simpler, even though England had been in the middle of war. That was the very war that had brought them to the Professor's house. The Professor's house had been the birthplace of their Narnian adventures.

And what fun they'd had! Susan couldn't deny that. When she closed her eyes and thought very hard, she could drudge up vague images of palaces and princes, and even a lion that could possibly be the "Aslan" that Peter, Ed, and Lucy had fervently believed to be real, to be the ruler of this imaginary world.

The harder she tried to recall these images, the more they slipped away. Yet when she was dreaming, these images and more would play into her subconscious in ways that made her almost want to believe Peter.

She often wondered why she was the only one of the four who no longer cherished such fanciful notions. She also wondered if it could be linked to her stay in America with her parents. Edmund and Lucy had gone off to stay with their Aunt and Uncle and had come home claiming to have had another Narnian adventure. Of course Peter believed them without hesitation, but Susan… well, she had begun to wonder if those adventures hadn't existed at all, especially as the one Lucy and Edmund were claiming had been even more incredible and unbelievable than all the rest combined.

And then there were her new friends. She'd switched boarding schools after the end of the war. Her new school was ritzier and the students snobbier, and it had taken all of her cunning (and fashion sense) to be admitted into their ranks.

"_Who are you?" Susan turned from her bed to face a pretty blonde with an upturned nose. Her expression matched her nasty tone._

"_My name's Susan Pevensie," she replied. Two other girls, both tall brunettes, one with piercing blue eyes, stood at the other's shoulder. The blue-eyed girl snickered maliciously._

"_Nice skirt, Susan Pevensie," she scoffed. Susan self-consciously smoothed her knee-length, navy blue pleated skirt. "You must be at least –what- twelve?" Susan flushed a deep scarlet as all the girls began to laugh. _

"_Are- are you my dorm mates?" She stuttered bravely. The blonde rolled her eyes. _

"_They're not," She pointed at the other two girls. "Luckies," she hissed at them over her shoulder. "Unfortunately, I'm stuck with you all year; or however long you last." She smiled meanly and spun on her heel, leaving the room with her fake friends in tow. Susan sat heavily on her bed and ran her hands over her face. _

"_This is going to be a long year," she whispered to herself._

Susan had never been a cunning or ambitious girl, but one learns new tricks when forced to for survival.

"_Susan! Is that you?" Susan stepped off the train onto the platform and smiled mischievously at Anna, the blonde girl who hardly a few months earlier had hated her. _

"_Oh, hello Anna," she replied. "Still here, are you?" She'd learned, through a bit of snooping, that Anna was older than she professed to be and had been held back for failure to complete her courses._

_Anna blushed deeply as the crowd around her laughed. Janet and Eliza, Anna's lackeys, smiled and joined Susan._

"_I simply _adore_ your blouse, Susan," Janet simpered, her blue eyes reflecting envy. Susan smoothed her blouse confidently, but said nothing. Eliza hooked her arm through Susan's._

"_Come," she commanded. "You _must_ tell us how you faired over your holiday." _

Christmas was an ideal time to change one's image. After all, you could have anything you wanted for free. Susan took the opportunity to arm herself with all the weapons a girl could need to be made popular.

Even after she finished school, the calls and written invitations came in scores. Night after night that first summer after graduation, she was out the door and off to some party or other. She often invited Peter to come along, but he always declined. He preferred to spend his summer nights with Lucy and Edmund, talking of Narnia. They all cherished the hope that one day they would be invited back. As each year passed, Susan's beliefs in such place were eventually squashed altogether.

At first, Peter's refusals to come with her had hurt. She resented Narnia and the hold it had over her brother, a hold they made her dim in comparison.

When Lucy or Edmund tried to engage her in some discussion of Narnia, she politely refused. With Peter, the conversation always ended with him slamming the door and her throwing something.

Although Lucy continued to be amused by Susan's attitude, she came to realize Edmund was disgusted by it. Eventually he ceased talking to her about it at all.

She could still remember her one last conversation with Ed before the accident. Somehow, all of her final conversations included Narnia.

"_Why do you act this way?" He asked. She was seated in her vanity chair; he stood in her doorway. It was reminiscent of the conversation she had with Peter the night before._

"_What do you mean, Ed?" She replied vacantly, applying the last of her mascara. He came over to her dresser and took the applicator from her hand. Standing in surprise, she wondered when he had surpassed her in height and how she had missed it. She was just too caught up in her own life._

"_I know you don't care about Peter's opinion, and it's obvious mine doesn't affect you either. But at least think of what you're doing to Lucy. She's always looked up to you more than anyone." He turned and left the room without another word, placing the applicator on her bed on the way out._

_Susan felt like crying. She'd never want to do anything to hurt Lucy. _

That conversation had taken place the night before Peter and Edmund were due to leave with their parents. Cousin Eustace and his friend Jill were coming to stay with Lucy for a few days, and Uncle Digory and Aunt Polly had come along to chaperone. They would leave on the train a few days later to see Eustace and Jill off to school.

"_Susan, aren't you coming too?" Lucy asked. Susan smiled._

"_I'm sorry, Lu, I'll be out late tonight, and I'll be much too tired," she replied. Lucy's face fell._

"_Another party?" Susan nodded, pulling on her nylon stockings. Jill, who was staying with them, made a face. Jill was a rather plain and homely girl, at least in Susan's opinion. She and Lucy, however, had become the best of friends._

_Lucy seemed upset, but said nothing more about it. They were due to leave the next morning._

_Susan went to her party but found she couldn't enjoy herself. She left early, pleading illness, and returned home feeling deflated. Part of her wanted to go with them, but she had an early afternoon brunch the next day as well, and couldn't be in both places at once._

_Her room felt empty and cold when she reached home. Leaving it in a messy state with the light off, she walked down the hall to Lucy's room. Silently, she climbed into bed next to her sleeping sister._

"_I'm sorry, Lu," she whispered before drifting off to sleep. When she woke, everyone was gone._

That was the last time she'd seen anyone alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

The country side came into view shortly throughout the trip. She knew a train would have been faster, but was terrified of them now (and who wouldn't be).

She shifted on the seat again. It was pretty uncomfortable, and she wasn't wearing her most comfortable clothing. The driver glanced at her in his mirror.

"You all right back there?" He asked in a heavy Scottish brogue. She nodded.

"Just tired," she replied, although it wasn't the least bit true. She was nervous.

After the funerals, Susan had been escorted into the lawyer's office. According to him, Uncle Digory's big house in the country had been left in his will to the Pevensie children. Since Susan was the only Pevensie left, the house fell to her.

Susan knew why the house had been left to her and her brothers and sister. It was because Digory believed in Narnia, too, and he believed whole-heartedly in the others' claims of adventures.

"_You kids have the greatest imagination," Mrs. Pevensie said, smiling at her children. They'd been chattering on about Narnia ever since she and father had come to fetch them from Uncle Digory's house. They were sat down to dinner with Digory and his old friend, Ms. Plummer. _

"_Mum, it really happened!" Lucy insisted. "Mr. Tumnus is my new best friend." Mrs. Pevensie exchanged looks with her husband. As they did, Professor Digory winked at Lucy, who grinned back._

A tear trickled down Susan's cheek. Lucy had always been so innocent and naïve; even after she grew older. And she'd been devastated when she'd "come back" from Narnia the last time. She said Aslan had told her she couldn't ever go back, that she was too old. Susan vaguely remembered a similar conversation, even now, involving Peter. They weren't allowed to return to Narnia because they were too old.

For the first time since she'd decided there was no Narnia, Susan began to doubt herself. Why on earth, as children, would they make up such a wondrous place and then exclude themselves from it? She hadn't thought of it at the time, but it didn't add up. If Narnia was something they'd created in their minds, something they continued to talk about for years, why wouldn't they just "play Narnia" again? Why would they pretend that Aslan had told them they couldn't come back?

Shaking herself, Susan wiped her tears away. Her grief was obviously affecting her mind. She was beginning to accept that Narnia might really exist.

They pulled into a long, winding drive that Susan found so familiar and yet so strange. The house was even bigger than she remembered, and she wondered how she could ever live in such a place alone. Yet she had no choice, she had no where else to go. Her parents' house, the house she'd grown up in, the only place she'd ever lived, was on the market for a new buyer, and Susan certainly didn't have the money to buy it.

Uncle Digory had also left a substantial sum of money for the children to live on, but Susan couldn't spend it on a house she didn't need, or else she would have to start working for money so she could eat. She'd heard of women in the States working during the war while their husbands where off fighting. She hoped she would never have to do such a thing. If she rationed the money carefully, she would be able to live on it for a long time.

The car came to a stop in front of the house, and the driver was out of the car and opening the door before Susan could even get her hand on the latch. She climbed out and stood in the drive, waiting as the driver pulled her trunk out of the boot. Once he'd done so, he let her into the house, and she couldn't help but stand in the front hall and look around for a moment, letting the memories wash over her.

She climbed the stairs to their old bedrooms and stood in the center, looking around.

"_We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," said Peter. "This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us do anything we like."_

She could almost _see_ Peter standing there next to her, grinning.

Although she'd promised herself she wouldn't, she went to the room containing the wardrobe.

Stepping inside, she coughed at the dust her shoes kicked up.

"_She's just making up a story for fun…"_

"_No, Peter, I'm not. It's a magic wardrobe. There's a wood inside it, and it's snowing, and there's a Faun and a Witch and it's called Narnia; come and see."_

And suddenly, looking at the old wooden wardrobe, she had to know. She opened the door and climbed up inside, pushing through the many coats. Part of her hoped, and part of her felt silly. She pushed aside mounds of fur and stretched her hand out.

Her fingers felt cold wood. She ran her hands along the entire back, around the corner, and up to the front. Nothing was there, it was simply a wardrobe.

"What're ye doin'?" Susan spun around and fell out of the wardrobe, landing in a heap on the floor. Looking up, she saw the driver watching her with concern on his face.

"Nothing," she replied angrily, pulling herself to her feet.

"I took yer trunk to yer room," he told her, still watching her carefully. She turned away to hide her tears.

"Yes, thank you." She said nothing more, and after a few moments she turned back to find the room empty. Sinking to the floor in exhaustion she let the tears flow. Why did she have to come back here? There were so many memories.

"_Peter! Susan! It's all true. Edmund has seen it too."_

"_Oh, yes, Lucy and I have been playing – pretending that all her story about a country in the wardrobe is true."_

She sighed, wiping her face with her hands, and stood. She ventured through the house, stopping in some rooms and passing by some others, when she came to the Professor's old study.

She stepped inside, enjoying the smell of leather and musk. Walking around the desk, she ran her fingers across the top of the polished mahogany and vowed to keep it this way; beautifully polished and looking like new.

Even this room brought back memories.

"_But this couldn't be true – all this about the wood and the faun." Susan could picture herself sitting there with Peter and the Professor._

"_That is more than I know." She remembered the confusion she had felt at that moment_

"_But do you really mean, sir, that there could be other worlds – all over the place, just around the corner – like that?" She imagined the look of incredulity on Peter's face._

"_Nothing is more probable."_

How _could_ he have believed it? He had confessed to them later about his adventures in Narnia as a boy, and how he was the one who brought the White Witch into the country. How could he remember and believe after so many years, and she could hardly do either after only nine?

She hurried out of the study, deciding it would be best to get something to eat. There was a housekeeper; not Mrs. Macready but another older woman to do the shopping and cleaning, and there was a caretaker to handle the grounds.

Once she had the food and was seated, she found she was no longer hungry. Everything in this house reminded her of Lucy, Peter, and Edmund. Leaving the plate where it sat, she climbed the stairs to the room she'd shared with Lucy so many years ago. Without a second thought, she fell onto the bed Lucy had slept in then. It was too small and too short, but she didn't care. A few minutes later she drifted off into a restless sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Sorry, didn't even realize I hadn't put the 3rd chapter up yet! I have chapter titles planned out, but they're in my work computer so I'll have to wait until Monday to put them up! Tell me what you think of this chapter b/c I'm not so sure about it._

Chapter Three

Susan sat on the sofa, her legs tucked up underneath her, reading a book. It was three weeks after she'd moved into Uncle Digory's old house, and she was beginning to adjust. She could now walk through certain parts of the house without tearing up. She had avoided the wardrobe room at all costs, leaving it to the house keeper to clean it.

The doorbell rang and Susan carefully marked her place and laid the book aside. She stood, smoothed her skirts, and went to answer the door.

"Susan!" Janet exclaimed, hugging her. "It's been so long!"

"Too long," Eliza said more softly, her green eyes full of sympathy. She gave Susan a gentler hug than Janet's, and Susan invited them in.

"This place is enormous," Janet said, her expression awestruck. "How do you live here all alone?" Susan shrugged.

"It was hard at first," she admitted, "but I've gotten used to the silence. It's actually somewhat peaceful." Eliza nodded.

"It would get lonely, though," she replied. Susan smiled.

"Sometimes, but this house has so many memories of Peter, Edmund, and Lucy that I never feel like I'm truly alone." Janet scrunched up her nose.

"You mean, like ghosts?" She asked in a wary voice. Susan laughed, shaking her head.

"No, nothing like that. Just... the memories keep me company." Janet raised her eyebrows.

"The... memories," she repeated in an odd voice, giving Eliza an unreadable look. Susan shook her head and led the way into the living room. She could hear Janet whispering behind her, but she ignored it. She never expected Janet to understand. Eliza maybe, but Janet simply didn't have the depth.

They stepped into the living room, and the girls settled on the sofas. Janet picked up the book Susan had been reading.

"What is this?" She asked, her voice full of disgust. Susan angrily snatched the book away.

"It was Lucy's," she snapped. Janet shrank away, but her eyes flashed dangerously.

"Well excuse me," she retorted, smoothing her skirt and fussing with her hair. Eliza glared at her before turning to Susan.

"We've missed you lately," she said. "You're never at any of the parties anymore. Why, just last week, Amy Fincelli threw a party and you weren't there! I know she invited you; why didn't you come?" Susan shrugged. She'd expected any sort of reprimand from her friends about being anti-social, but she knew they wouldn't understand why.

The truth was, she simply didn't have the heart for the social life any longer. Invitations that were still being sent to her parents' house were forwarded to her house (she'd finally begun to think of it as "hers") in the country by the new residents. Each time one arrived, she would open, smile, and set it aside. Eventually, she'd bounded them up and stored them in a drawer in the hallway. But she never could feel a desire to attend. With each invitation that arrived, she heard one of her brother's voices in her head, replaying their last conversation together. With Amy Fincelli's invitation, she'd almost mustered the courage to go, when she heard Lucy's voice.

i_ "Susan, aren't you coming too?" Lucy asked._/i

The memory had brought her to tears, and she'd tossed Amy's invitation in the garbage pail.

"I've just been busy settling in," Susan lied. "You know, taking care of last minute things, getting my parents' house sold. I've just had so much to do." Eliza smiled.

"Well, once things have calmed down, I'll have a small party so you can ease back into things, all right?" Susan nodded slowly. She supposed a small party wouldn't be so bad. And Eliza would be the hostess, so she wouldn't feel any awkward obligations if she decided to head home early.

"I must say, Amy's party wasn't all that great any way," Janet said scornfully. "She's supposed to be so popular, and no one of consequence was even in attendance! Especially you, Susan, everyone wanted to know where you were. I think Amy was counting on you to raise the status of her flop of a party." Susan nodded absentmindedly. She was privately thinking that with her recent hermit-like attitude, she was unlikely to hold her high status in society much longer. Somehow, the thought didn't bother her as much as it would have a month before.

"Yes, well, Amy's been bad-mouthing so many people lately, she's lucky to have any friends left," Eliza interjected simply. "She's offended half of society with her tactless remarks." Susan smiled.

"Amy has always been that way, people just overlooked it. Ever since she became engaged to Kirk, half of society has been jealous of her." Janet nodded.

"I know I am, he's is so handsome!" She agreed. Eliza stared at her.

"I thought you were being courted by Andrew Mason," she asked, aghast. Janet shrugged.

"He asked me to allow him to court me, but I just haven't decided yet. He's a nice boy but I'm trying to keep my options open." Susan shook her head.

"You shouldn't string Andrew along," she scolded slightly. "He's always cared for you, even before we left school. You'll hurt him if you wait much longer." Janet rolled her eyes.

"Oh, he'll be fine. I told him I needed to think about it and later that evening I saw him speaking very intimately with Rachel Boardman. He'll bounce back just fine if I turn him down." Susan sighed.

"What's the matter?" Eliza asked.

"I just-" she paused. "It's nothing. I'm just tired." The girls chatted for a few more hours and had a nice tea on the back lawn before Eliza and Janet were due to return home. Susan waved them off before closing the heavy front doors.

Wandering back into the living room, she collapsed onto the couch. Her head was aching from Janet's incessant gossiping. Sure, Janet was her friend, but she was beginning to tire of the "who said what about whom" talk. In the long run of life, what did it really matter?

Another week passed, and, true to her word, Eliza organized a "small" party – in Susan's honor – to allow Susan to ease back into society. Susan sighed heavily when she read the invitation. She'd not wanted to be in the spotlight. And with the party in her honor, she couldn't leave until all of the other guests had retired.

"I suppose I'll have to go," she said to herself, quickly writing a response and setting it in the box by the door for the post to pick up. "Eliza will be so hurt if I refuse." For the first time since the accident, she heard no protests from her memories.


End file.
